


Devoid of Remorse

by littlebluetrashcan



Series: Natashalie and Anthony [5]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Hurt Tony Stark, Natasha Feels, Natasha Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Is a Good Bro, Tony Stark Swears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 09:10:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6073528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlebluetrashcan/pseuds/littlebluetrashcan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Nat has so much as a bump on her, Tony promises that they’re going to have hell to pay. Anthony Stark is never one to break his promises, either (unless said promises are made to Fury, because that dick has it coming to him). </p><p>OR: An expanded look at what the Avengers were doing while Natasha was kidnapped in my other story, ‘Love in the Form of a Comic Book’.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Devoid of Remorse

**Author's Note:**

> Because it was only touched on in my previous story, and I wanted to explore the theme more. Also I did nothing all day and decided to churn this out instead. So.

Tony gets the call at half past one (exactly) on a Saturday afternoon. Which, he’d like to point out, was going perfectly fine. Natasha was meant to meet him at two, to go and see some new movie at the cinema (not that Tony’d know what it was – he just told Nat to pick something interesting).

But, now…

If whoever kidnapped Natasha stops him from seeing his movie, he’s going _to rip them a_ _new one_.

Also, if she has so much as a bump on her, Tony promises that they’re going to have hell to pay. Anthony Stark is never one to break his promises, either (unless said promises are made to Fury, because that dick has it coming to him).

“Alright,” says Cap, grimly, who’d been rudely eavesdropping on his abrupt conversation with Agent Hill on Nat’s whereabouts. “I’ll grab the others. We’ll meet at the Hub in… twenty minutes? For debriefing.” He sounds far to calm about the situation – whereas Tony’s heart is racing, despite his outwardly relaxed demeanor.

Tony grunts an awkward assent, and mockingly salutes Steve as he storms out of the room. He’ll suit up, he thinks, and get JARVIS to check absolutely every building in the goddamned city for Natasha’s heat signature, or something. He’ll hack into every goddamned security camera for her last whereabouts, and then he’ll stride into wherever the hell she’s being held captive and blow all of the morons who thought they _could take her from him_ into oblivion.

Tony smiles despite himself. _We have a great friendship_ , he thinks, amused.

Cap leaves the room in the opposite direction as Tony takes the lift down into his Malibu house’s workshop (why the hell was Cap even over, anyway? Probably trying to force Tony to write last month’s ReedSlug mission report or something). Storming furiously up to his suits, he snarls; “Prepare Mark Forty-Four, JARVIS,” and then feels bad at the abrupt tone of his voice and quickly tacks on an apology to the end of his statement as the pieces of his suit fly onto his body one by one. “Alright, J, find Nat for me.”

“ _Already done, Sir,”_ JARVIS says, quickly. “ _Miss Romanoff is two blocks from the Shawarma place that you went to after the… battle of New York. She is in an old abandoned strip club. Madame Liliana’s. But, sir, your suit-”_

“The one that I bought out and closed down to piss off General Ross?” Tony sounds amused, cutting off JARVIS and referring to the strip club. “Alright. Let’s go, J.”

He’s in such a hurry to reach her that the journey takes barely twenty minutes, and Cap hasn’t even started yelping down his coms asking where the hell he is yet. Good. Tony hopes it’ll stay like that.

Except, it doesn’t. He touches down outside the strip joint and instantly his suit buckles beneath him and the light starts to fizzle out before his eyes. “What the fuck, J?” he demands, completely disturbed by the failure of his tech.

“ _I tried to warn you, Sir,”_ JARVIS sounds exasperated as he speaks out of the external com in Tony’s ear. “ _This suit was not completed yet. It had not yet been checked. Surely you were aware of this.”_

“I may have forgotten,” Tony looks mildly pissed off. “Oh well. Give me the hand gun and we’ll be on our way.” To his credit, JARVIS doesn’t say anything else on the matter. He pops the secret compartment in the back of the suit and Tony reaches in to grab the (thankfully) fully loaded gun.

Telling JARVIS to blow the useless suit, Tony storms inside of the club, easily kicking down the boarded-up door and shooting two unsuspecting guys in the head without blinking or any feeling of remorse. The suit blows up behind him, making the billionaire feel more-than-slightly badass as he storms into the room with an explosion of fiery orange in the background.

He shoots another guy in the leg, so that he _feels_ pain before Tony finally shoots him right between the eyes - completely on purpose (actually, he’d been aiming for the chest, but this looked more professionally done, so he was going to just go with it). There’s a searing pain the back of his leg and he hears a gunshot – he’s been fucking _shot_ , so now he needs to get twice as even with these bastards. Another guy sneaks up behind him and tries to jab a knife into his side, but Tony twists at the last moment and the guy ends up impaling his arm. When his attacker finally gets a bullet in the brain, the blood ends up all over Tony, and he finds himself spitting in disgust at the dead, bloody corpse.

Finally, he spots Nat in the back of the room. She’s tied to the chair, with a guy standing behind her and watching her hands to make sure that she wasn’t wriggling out of her bonds, and a gun to her head. Which, by the way, _was not cool_. Another guy is standing formidably in front of her. He’s laughing.

Two quick shots, and both guys are lying dead on the floor.

Tony is breathing hard. They’re all dead (all six of them – how’d they manage to take Nat captive, anyway?).

“They told me not to come,” Tony says, pursing his lips slightly. He looks at Nat worriedly as she straightens up in her bonds and stares at her. He wants to say that _Cap_ told him not to come, but he decides not to throw the guy under the bus like that. “I’m very fucking glad I did. You okay?”

She just keeps staring at him, with that confused look on her face – like she doesn’t know why he’d risk his own life for hers. _Idiot_ , Tony thinks. He loves her ( _platonically_ , okay, because he doesn’t know what he’d do without Pepper) too much to let her go.

“ _Why isn’t he in his suit?”_ he hears her mutter, and thinks maybe she hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

“JARVIS was repairing it,” Tony lies, because the lie is less embarrassing than the truth. His tech failed on him because he was too stupid to realise that it wasn’t quite _done_ yet. “I just decided to wing it.”

“Right. Yeah, okay,” she mutters. Then she cocks her head to one side and frowns. “You’re bleeding. There’s a knife in your arm.”

“Yeah,” Tony swallows hard, but his eyes are now fixed on the dead guy who’d been standing in front of her, who has his pants unbuckled. “And Cap’s yelling in my ear. I just…” he sways on his feet, and Nat yelps as he comes crashing down onto the ground.

* * *

 

Tony wakes up in a hospital bed.

Someone is tucked into his side, head resting on his chest. His arm and his leg feel like they’ve been all stitched up and bandaged, which is more uncomfortable than it is reassuring. Further investigation shows Natasha sitting up on a bed next to him, with a book open on her lap and her eyes glued to Tony.

“Hey, Tones,” Nat says, smiling.

His eyes take on a more concerned look. “Are you okay?”

“Broken ribs and a bullet in my shoulder. Well, it _was_ in my shoulder. Before the surgeon decided to yank it out.”

“He did _not_ yank it out, Tasha,” Clint rolls his eyes from his position at the end of Nat’s bed. He’s tapping frantically at the buttons of an old Gameboy console. “Take _that_ , bitch!” he yells at the game.

Cap coughs pointedly from the doorway. “Clint, we’re in a _hospital._ ”

“Sorry,” says Clint, looking abashed. His Gameboy makes a chirpy noise, and he pumps his fist into the air. “ _YEAH!”_ Steve rolls his eyes in exasperation.

The person lying on Tony’s chest stirs and Tony looks down, coming face to face with Pepper Pott’s strawberry blonde curls. “Hey, Pep,” Tony smiles at her, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“Hi, dickhead,” Pepper says, reaching up to grab one of his hands lovingly. “Finished saving people’s asses without proper instructions, yet?” Cap makes another pointed cough in the back of his throat, and Tony hears the distinctive chuckles belonging to both Thor and Bruce from another part of the room.

“Probably not,” Tony says, meeting Pepper halfway as she brings her lips up to meet his.

It’s blissful oblivion, and for a moment, Tony forgets about the throbbing pain in his arm, and the aching burn in his leg. Then, unfortunately, Clint decides to ruin the moment with another yell at his game, and Tony and Pepper break apart. Bruce dissolves into laughter again, and is quickly followed by both Thor and Cap.

* * *

 

Later, everyone else files out of the room. Tony and Natasha are left sleeping in the stuffy hospital, in the cold, crisp and uncomfortable beds. “Goodnight, Tones,” Nat whispers at about quarter past ten.

Tony smiles. “Night, Nat,” he whispers back.

There’s a long pause, then, and Tony allows his eyes to slowly flutter shut. Almost ten minutes pass. Both of them are still awake – and they both know it, too. He thinks about that bastard who’d been standing in front of her, with his pants unbuckled, and wishes he’d shot the guy’s dick off so that he couldn’t even have sex in the afterlife (if there even was one of those).

“Thank you, you idiot,” Natasha says, finally.

Tony grins so wide, that his jaw almost hurts more than his burning arm, and whispers, trying hard not to think about what might have happened if he hadn’t got there earlier; “ _Ti amo_.”


End file.
